Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Dead Man’s Mirror (1993)

Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Dead Man’s Mirror (1993) (Season 5, episode 7) is an adaptation of a short story that first appeared in 1932. It was then expanded for inclusion in Murder in the Mews, a collection published in 1937. Such is always the way with an author. You write something one day and then see a way in which it can be improved the next. Except, of course, the expansion does little to help a modern television company looking for a one-hour show. The challenge for Anthony Horowitz as scriptwriter, therefore, is to remain faithful to the spirit of the original while adding to it. In many ways, the strategy adopted here for filling out the content is rather clever. The textual story begins with Hercule Poirot (David Suchet) peremptorily summoned by Sir Gervase Chevenix-Gore (Iain Cuthbertson) and, when he arrives, he finds his client dead. Since the key to the case is the eponymous mirror, the television version has Sir Gervase outbid Hercule Poirot for the mirror at an auction and then use the mirror to lure the detective to his home and accept a commission to investigate an initially unspecified fraud. In other words, Hercule Poirot would not usually have forgiven the man for his rudeness, but would swallow his pride if he thought he would get the mirror in part-payment for his services.

Vanda (Zena Walker) asks her spirit for guidance

So, Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings (Hugh Fraser) set off into the countryside by train. We have backstory showing Ruth (Emma Fielding) has already married Lake (Richard Lintern) with Ms Lingard (Fiona Walker) secretly observing, and our dynamic duo meet Susan (Tushka Bergen) on the train. Hugo (Jeremy Northam) meets them at the station and we see his workshop where he’s trying to develop stainless-steel framed furniture for the market. Sir Gervaise is threatening to cut him off without a penny which would leave him unable to pursue his commercial dreams. When we arrive at the house, Sir Gervaise wants Poirot to investigate Lake for an apparent fraud. More interestingly, we then come to another Agatha Christie supernatural element. The wife of Sir Gervaise is called Vanda (Zena Walker). She believes she has a spirit guide from Ancient Egypt who has warned her that a death is coming. Hercule Poirot is fascinated and gets details.

We then follow the plot of the original story except now Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings are house guests. Captain Hastings hears the gong for dinner, but Hercule Poirot does not. They both hear what they assume to be a shot and, when they break into the study, find Sir Gervaise has apparently shot himself in the head holding a gun in his left hand. This looks to be a suicide with the mirror broken by the bullet. When Inspector Japp (Philip Jackson) arrives on the scene, he’s all for it being self-inflicted, but Hercule Poirot points out that the man was right-handed and he’s curious as to where the bullet is.

Hugo (Jeremy Northam) and Susan (Tushka Bergen) talk about furniture

We then have some nice padding involving Lake’s fraud and get into the ending where Anthony Horowitz has outdone himself to flesh out the supernatural element into a full-blown manifestation of the Egyptian spirit. It’s all magnificently silly but it does nicely bring us to the hour mark (allowing for ads) without it looking too forced. The pleasing thing about this particular episode is that, for once, the adaptation is meticulously fair in showing us all the minor hints and clues in plain sight. Too often, the answer turns on something only the great detective would have known. This time, we get every detail and have the same chance to work out who must have done it. Equally of interest is the supernatural element. As I have commented elsewhere, Agatha Christie was writing at a time when table-turning and other spiritualist events were common. She could therefore hint at current social trends and be more immediately understood. Today, we’ve moved away from accepting spiritualism as real and now indulge our interests in more extreme forms of the supernatural. What would have been considered really spooky ninety years ago would be far too tame for today’s audience. That means the modern scriptwriter is working on a knife edge to keep the sense of the original while making it less naive for our sensibilities. Finally, a word must be said about Iain Cuthbertson who contrives to be rather magnificently unpleasant in such a short space of time before being bumped off. The rest of the cast do enough to be distinctive without distracting our attention from David Suchet and Hugh Fraser. Overall Dead Man’s Mirror proves to be one of the better episodes with Hercule Poirot seen to be relying on key people to be gullible when he pushes their buttons.